Santo and Wyatt

The Weymouth Psychiatric Sanatorium stood at the end of a small peninsula, which slimmed like a blade over the water such that there was just room enough for a narrow road driving half a mile, whereupon the natural land bridge fanned out to a rocky outcropping. This outcropping, nearly an island but for its one artery, gained altitude at a thirty degree slope until it plunged downwards to a breathtaking drop of perpetual spray and foam. Upon this singular geography the Sanatorium was completely alone. Originally it was built as a general hospital, but the solitary location, grim atmosphere, and firm architecture gradually was recognized as better suited for the mentally ill.

Past Weymouth's huge stone walls, down a long corridor, inside of padded cell #010, the night stole the sun, so that one blink was all that appeared to separate the day from darkness. The room was so bare as to be hardly worth describing, just six planes of blank white, with the floor and ceiling made precisely the same as the walls. The only things in the room were a firm mattress, a washbasin, and the subject of our story: Santo Marón.

There was no smoke alarm in his room, which worried Santo a great deal. The walls possessed only two features: a square, barred window and one very heavy door.

The door had no windows to look out of, just a rectangular slot for food at knee-height. When day had blinked into night, Santo sat up, clambered off the bed, crept over to the door, and sat criss-crossed in front of the meal slot. Not for a meal. He lifted the thin metal plate covering the slot, knotted up his two socks into a ball, and he stuck it into the metal slot to jamb it open.

He looked out, and saw the dark hallway, full of heavy doors with numbers on them. He noticed a bar of moonlight on the floor, cast from the window behind him. Santo could not afford to be noticed, so he pulled his shirt over his head, so that it formed a hood, blocking any window-light from spilling out of his peephole. Tonight, like last night, like every night he could remember, he watched.

And waited.

He heard them first. Padded footfalls approached. Shadows crossed his vision. Santo leaned to follow their movement. Two figures. From his vantage he could only see their lower halves. They stopped at the door across the hall, to the right of his. His heart pounded. He heard a doorlock keyed, a heavy door swing, then he saw the hem of green coats flap behind them. Midnight visitors. The door shut. Santo took a note of the room with a blunt construction pencil, "012", onto the metal surface of his door.

He waited, watching the door. Silence held the hallway perfectly still. 237 seconds later (he noted this above the number "012" and circled it), the door swung open again.

The pair of cloaked figures resumed the hallway. There was a brief, conspiring whisper, then they turned, set so that they seemed to contemplate his door, and Santo almost fled. Instead, the door immediately next to his was chosen. The door was flung wide, and Santo wrote the number "011". He knew her: Victoria. Santo tried to listen past the metal doors, then realized his best chance to hear wasn't by the hallway.

He knelt on his bed and pressed one ear to the wall. He focused on it as you might a heartbeat, willing away all external sound. He heard voices first, garbled and coaxing beyond his wall, then suddenly, a scream sundered all other sound. It was Victoria's, he was sure, and it seemed so loud to him that he pulled away from the wall.

After a while in a nuthouse, you began to get a feel for all the pitches and whines of the "crazy scream". This was new to him, sounding both lucid and desperate, so loud that even through the wall he heard it. Fight or flight hormones thundered through him, but he was impotent to do anything except bear witness. It cut off as sharply as it had begun, like a plug being pulled. He banged his head as he furiously pressed his ear back to the wall, and there he heard Victoria's voice once more,

"No, No, NOOOooo….,"

The cries fell and then slipped underneath the register of human hearing. Santo's head fell from its position, slack with disbelief. He turned, saw that his socks still levered the mealslot open, then he crawled back to his post, dutifully counting the seconds. 941 seconds later—a long time—a pair of green jackets left, their lower halves crossing his vision one more time.

Was their a newly-found slackness to their knees? Did he detect a certain unburdened atmosphere to their gait? He couldn't write such questions. They weren't scientific, but they plagued him. He wrote down the seconds, circled it. After another moment, he noted an asterisk.

He looked at the long sequence that had preceded it, a sequence of numbers longer than he could remember writing. Utterly predictable, descending, and he felt that familiar doom. It had come closer to his door every night, now it was at his doorstep. The next number to write would be his own, 010.

"Call me Cassandra," he thought wretchedly, for the curse of Cassandra was his lot. That old Greek prophetess who saw the future, yet was powerless to call anyone to heed. She was laughed at, until Troy was sacked, and she raped by Ajax the Lesser.

But, no! "Not me," he decided, "Wyatt will just hear me out this time. He has to."

***

They were in the cafeteria.

"I'm NOT crazy. It's very important that you know that Wyatt, very important that you believe that because I know I look the same as every other whacko in here."

"Did I call you crazy? I didn't say anything like that,"

"Well. No not aloud," Santo conceded, "Because you're a pro. But you don't believe me, do you? Elsewise you'd be listening better."

Wyatt gave Santo a placating smile, "I'm listening chum, but you're talking some pretty uncustomary ideas."

"Death is uncustomary Wyatt! So is lots of life! I mean, take Pascal's wager. If I'm wrong…okay it's a big-bag-of-nothing, but if I'm right! You must act!"

Wyatt sighed and drew forwards, elbows resting on sitting knees and said, "Santo, you're an intelligent fellow. Here's what I never understood: If you can see everyone else here is crazy, and everyone in here thinks they're not crazy, then what does that say about you? Have you considered, entertained, or otherwise got it through your thick fucking skull that you could be ever-so-slightly off your rocker? Eh?"

Santo considered this for a minute. Then, "Do you know what Kipling would say about that?"

Wyatt groaned.

"Kipling would say,—Wyatt, pay attention—he would say, Wyatt, 'A man keeps his head when all about him are losing theirs'. That's me. And, come to think of it, Descartes would deliver another redounding blow to your attack: 'Cogito Ergo Sum', Wyatt. Am I not? I think, therefore I am, therefore I am clearly not crazy."

"Geezus. Santo, you might've gotten just smart enough to be dumb. You can't even see yourself anymore. Sometimes I wonder if—…if…"

"What? If, what?" Santo said, "Say it."

If that's how you got in here. Santo knew his friend well.

"If…" Wyatt said, "–Never mind. You read too much, that's all I'm sayin'."

"Look, Wyatt, I just want you to check on the night shift. Please Wyatt? For me, your old college chum, remember that—what times we had!—back then when we used to test together and you used to believed me then, you never questioned my mind back then,"

Another asylum officer walked by, and Santo stopped talking, turning his head down to study the plate in front of him: calories à la bean soup.

Wyatt had also turned his attention away. Wyatt got self-conscious around others when talking to Santo, which is why Wyatt sat four feet away from him, in a chair facing the cafeteria, back straight against the wall. Wyatt's dusky green trench coat distinguished his apartness, his saneness.

Wyatt's "jobligations" (that's what he called them) were temporarily attended to, his office in memory now, and his eyes swiveled around lunch group C, monitoring the various clusters of "coconuts", looking out for trouble. Santo watched him and that dusky green coat out of the corner of his vision, thought how fine it looked, and about how if only he had a green coat, instead of his all-white one, people would finally believe him. No more arguing. He could walk right out of here.

He had to be careful with Wyatt; he enjoyed having someone sane to speak with. Most Greencoats wouldn't give Santo even a nod of the head. But, this might be his only chance. He had to get Wyatt away. "Cigarette?" Santo offered.

Wyatt shrugged, but then he stood, mentioned it to a nearby Greencoat, and trussed Santo up into his straitjacket for a walk outside.

Why did Wyatt put up with him?

Well, Santo wasn't sure but suspected that his old pal enjoyed their relationship, if only for the strange change in fate that had metamorphized Santo, the well-to-do silver-spooned prodigy, into this cockroach, and set Wyatt, the…well frankly the rather ordinary man, as his overseer.

How long can a man exist as a cockroach? That question was much on Santo's mind these days. He thought of The Trial too, and how a sanatorium presented the perfect embodiment of a "kafka trap". Was it possible for a cockroach to convince a human to take him seriously?

They both stopped just at the corner where a shadow fell neatly between two columns. Wyatt reached into his sanity-pronouncer and drew from within a pack of red Winston's. They were Santo's cigarettes, and Santo noticed that he was already down to a half-pack. Wyatt had to hold onto the cigs for him, since inmates weren't allowed to possess such health-hazards, so when Santo's family sent down some supplies, Wyatt split the nicotine with him fifty-fifty. Or, at least that was the agreement.

A lighter sparked as Wyatt lit the nail; Santo stuck his lip out; and Wyatt jabbed the burning cigarette in like a spoonful of medicine. Santo took a thick drag, and let go. It was not easy to smoke a cigarette without your hands, but the main trick of it was to avoid the smoke curling up into your nostrils, so Santo walked with his chin jutted up, his cigarette and gaze pointed to the sky. He puffed, pacified.

He could smell the free salty air, hear the waves crash themselves upon the rocks that surrounded this bleak existence. Seagulls cawed in the distance.

"Alright Santo, make your case." Wyatt said. He took the cigarette out of Santo's mouth with a deft snatch and took a drag.

"Last night I saw, up close this time two more people get done in, in room 12 and 11. The latter was screamin' for her life. I spoke with them both today—"

"Oh I'm meant to say about that," Wyatt interrupted. "Dr. Murkel says you're not a psychiatrist, and it's dangerous for the other patients to view you—"

"—WYATT. SHUT UP AND LISTEN. "

"Excuse me?" Wyatt snarled.

"Um, ok, I can shut up but, but you gotta talk to them. The same symptoms as I said before: numb and dumb. #012 was always an odd loon but as loud as you care for, and now? Now he's about as convivial as a doorstop. Didn't say a word to me, nothin'. You'll talk to them?"

"I...I could talk to him…"

"Promise? Oh, it'll prove it Wyatt, I guarantee, and you'll see it, finally. They're destroying us, one by one!"

"Santo, even if someone were doing something, and I don't say they are but ok, say they are, maybe it's treatment, can't you see that possibility? Weymouth has treatment options. Maybe it's trying to undisturb some troubled minds."

"NO!" Santo roared.

"I already told you. Easy, pal."

"Every single person they've 'treated' has become catatonic! How is that 'treatment'? Not a single—not a blessed ONE—has gone home. They're scooping the humanity right out from us, leaving a passel of empty shells to care for. Easier that way, isn't it. We'll chow bean-soup all day, get fat, and never notice we're not home with Momma,"

"Well...maybe something is going around. What did you say about 011? I know her, I think," Wyatt reflected, "Victoria, right? A good kid."

"Good kid…she was a great fuckin' kid," Santo said miserably. "But—," his voice choked up as he remembered. Wyatt would never believe Santo's theory. "Just look into her eyes, Wyatt. She's not even a shell anymore, she's shattered completely."

Wyatt looked away from Santo's tears. "Pull yourself together pal, it's not decent."

"BURN IN DAMNATION, WYATT!" Santo screamed. Then, his voice a pathetic wail, "Will you please. Give me. My cigarette."

"Geezy Pete's man, ok." Wyatt returned the quarter-stick that was left and they walked in the ruined silence.

Wyatt said, "You better not try an' pull any of this loudmouthing inside. You know I gotta soft spot for you, but I can't have it. I won't." Santo didn't answer, his mouth was currently performing a chimney operation on the last bit of cigarette, but he softly bumped his shoulder into Wyatt in reply, Yes Wyatt, I'll be good. Ash fell onto Santo's face.

As they walked back in the building, Santo said, "Promise you'll look into it…and if you find something, you'll look after me?"

"I promise,"

Santo's eyes filled with heartfelt tears. "Thank you. Goodbye, Wyatt."

"See ya, Santo."

Santo trudged back towards his room, all that he could do, done.

***

The daylight blinked, and Santo's world was cast into twilight. Tonight he did not get up to peer from his meal slot. They would not come. Wyatt would stop them. That's what he kept reminding himself. His hands shook, his head ached, and he wanted a cigarette more than—well, near anything.

Santo looked upon his cell door, the graphite-scratched numbers upon numbers that would terminate with his own, until suddenly he heard the sound of falling footsteps.

He counted down the numbers: 022, 021, 020,…

The swish of green authority. The pretense of sanity. The unwatching night. The footsteps approached. 013, 012, 011, …

010. X marks the patient.

His heart raced, and he shrunk behind his bed. The thought hadn't occurred to him earlier, but he had to fight. There was nothing left to do, before the screams raked his throat.

A bolt unracked, and the door was opened. Not two men, but two enormous wolves, both in coats of dark green fur loped into the room. His horror was made complete. Crouched, Santo watched them through the bars on one end of the bed. One held a small silver case in its mouth, which it set upon the table. The case dripped with saliva and opened with a yawn.

The other beast swarmed around the room, finding Santo in three strides. Santo screamed now, his shrill cry a delayed answer to 011. He leapt over the bed, putting it between him and the monster. One growl and the bed was torn away from him. He shrunk into a ball as they pounced.

The wolves pinned him down, hot breath against his neck. They pressed against him, their strength undeniable, their eyes holding a swirl of dead souls—all those people they'd taken from their rooms and never returned. Oh God, please. Not me. NO!

"NOO—" a needle pierced his arm like a fang, "—oooooOooo-o…" Santo's voice faded. The bite made his blood feel cold. The room seemed to dim.

The wolves looked so sad now, like they were sorry. Their flanks heaved less, their fur seemed matte and ordinary. Finally, just like that, as though the dentist were done and the patient deemed a good boy, a cigarette appeared, lit and delivered into Santo's mouth. A Winston.

"Not really allowed to do that,"

"Yeah? We gonna start following the rules now? Fuck you, man... Hang in there, pal."

Hang in there, Santo.

Hang in there,

Hang Santo.

Hang Santo?

***

"Hey, Santo?" Wyatt looked at the lunch table where Santo Marón slumped in his cafeteria chair, his chin standing in a puddle of black beans. He wasn't responding.

Aripiprazole injection, combined with olanzapin. It was one helluva knockout, delivered once a month.

"You ok there, old boy?"

Played hell on the memory too. Santo didn't budge, stared straight ahead, towards the white concrete wall that hadn't changed since Weymouth was built. Nothing hung there.

Wyatt got up, crossed the distance and slid into the seat across from Santo. Santo's eyes stared at his chest now.

"I'm…sorry. I flexed my shift so that I could... I mean, better a friend right? We'll talk again in a couple of weeks, alright?" Santo's personality would return, slowly, as the dose tapered through his system, but the first week was always bad. Wyatt stood.

Santo blinked suddenly, perhaps caught by Wyatt's voice, then slowly slid his eyes upwards to Wyatt's face. Bean soup dripped from his lifted chin. Wyatt looked back.

Now, there's a lot that you can see in someone's eyes if you pay attention, especially when they gaze back, which is why it is frequently described as uncomfortable. You can see things in there you never once suspected.

Wyatt saw nothing in Santo's eyes. Nothing but a concrete wall, as blank as all the rest in Weymouth. He turned and hurried away, outside to have a smoke. His pack was empty.